The influence of the 16th-century Protestant reformer Jean Calvin, born in France on 10 July 1509, has probably not been felt as much in any single country as South Africa - and with decidedly mixed results.

A former minister of police in South Africa's apartheid regime has again washed the feet of people he says he wronged while head of one of the most feared arms of the State - but this time they were apartheid's 'foot soldiers' themselves.

A South African church suspended in 1982 from the World Alliance of Reformed Churches for its support for apartheid is "still not ready for readmission", a meeting of the grouping's executive committee in Geneva has been told.